Vinesh Phogat becomes first Indian to be nominated for Laureus award

Balali: India’s ace wrestler Vinesh Phogat became the first Indian to be nominated for the prestigious Laureus World Sports Award on Thursday.

The Haryana wrestler, who had won the gold medal in last year’s Commonwealth Games too apart from winning a silver in Asian Championships, has been nominated in “Laureus World Sporting Comeback” category for the year 2019 and will be competing for the award with golf great Tiger Woods, Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris, American alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn, Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Manyu, and Dutch para-snowboarding star Bibian Mentel-Spee.

The 24-year-old wrestler was one of the nominees for the
Padma Shri award in 2018.she has got the Arjuna Award for Wrestling.

Vinesh was one of the favourites to win a medal for India at
the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but a horrific knee injury forced
her tournament to an end at the quarter-finals. However, now she is
expected to be a favourite to win a medal for the country in the 2020 Tokyo
Olympics.